Fortuities
by lost in a musical daydream
Summary: Molly is determined to make her senior year the best, best, best year ever. And somehow, it becomes so. americanhighschool!AU. For Chloe.


**So, like, I totally realize that this isn't Chapter 5 of Luck. But I wrote this as a birthday present for my friend, and I thought it would be a shame to not post it. (Since it's the most actual completed fanfiction thing I've done since December 23. So.)**

**Enjoy! (Or don't, and yell at me for not updating something. Since I know I've upset at least one person.)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own BBC Sherlock, or Benedict, or Loo, yada yada, etc.**

* * *

Molly is determined to make her senior year of high school the best, best, best year ever.

Freshman year was awkward, as it always is - being a small, shy girl in a new school is bound to be bad. Sophomore year was okay - she met Jim Moriarty at the end of it and she was happy, for a little while. Junior year was _hard_ - the SATs took a toll on her, but she pulled through with the second highest score in the class. (After Sherlock Holmes, of course.)

Senior year should, can, and will be perfect.

It has to be.

* * *

It doesn't start out that way, however - but Molly firmly believes in the policy that it can only go up from here.

* * *

Jim and Molly don't usually fight. But when they do, it's vicious. After a particularly violent one, in which Jim throws some stinging barbs and Molly is reduced to tears, she storms away, wiping at the tears rolling down her face. See, it isn't that Jim isn't a good boyfriend, per se… It's just, he can be so very spiteful. And he can say the most hateful things.

Molly collapses on one of the benches outside the library, not noticing the other person sitting there.

"Er," says a deep, hesitant voice, "Erm, are you alright?"

Molly turns her head sharply towards the stranger - whom, it turns out, isn't really a stranger at all. She knows this person. It's Sherlock Holmes. John Watson's best friend and the genius of the school, generally ostracized because his brother is the principal.

Belatedly, she realizes that he's asked her a question. "Oh, erm, yes. Fine. I'm fine."

"You don't look it," he observes bluntly. Molly has no time to be offended before he offers, "I'm Sherlock."

"I know," she says, and smiles involuntarily. "I'm Molly."

"I know." He smirks a little, and Molly isn't sure whether she should faint, swoon, or just stammer awkwardly and walk away. He really is devastatingly handsome; she's not sure how she didn't notice it before.

She doesn't do any of these things. Instead, embarrassingly, she starts to talk to him.

"It's just that Jim - he's my boyfriend - he said some really hateful things to me and I'm sure he didn't mean them but it hurt my feelings and I think he's cheating on me with Irene Adler." She stops and sits back, and her eyes go wide. She's never voiced that particular fear to anyone.

Sherlock frowns, and for a split-second she thinks he's about to make fun of her. "Irene?" he says finally. "No."

"No?"

"No. He isn't cheating on you with Irene."

"How do you know?" asks Molly, allowing herself to be hopeful.

"The same way I know that you don't fit in with his crowd, you have an obese cat whom you've surely named something sentimental like Fluffy, and you came over here because you're lonely, although you refuse to acknowledge that to yourself or to anyone else." Sherlock rattles this off in almost one whole breath, and as soon as he finishes he looks at her with a face that clearly says he hadn't meant to do that or he'd done it before and he'd been called names for it.

"Toby," she stammers, a little bit stunned. "My cat's name is Toby."

Sherlock shrugs, as if this is trivial information. "It's always something," he mutters to himself. "I'm never spot-on."

"How-" Molly starts to say, but is interrupted by Sherlock.

"Jim isn't cheating on you with Irene, Molly," he says.

Molly is about to let out a gigantic sigh of relief when he continues, "He's cheating on you with Sebastian Moran."

He gets up, his long coat emphasizing his lean build. "See you around, Molly Hooper," he says, and sweeps away with nothing more than a little crooked smile and a wink.

* * *

Molly barely makes it to calculus before the bell rings, but John and Greg have still managed to save her usual seat for her - between the two of them.

She knows she's supposed to enjoy subjects like home ec and history, but Molly genuinely loves math with a passion that most of her friends don't understand. It helps that her teacher is amazing and has let them choose their seats for the whole year. It also helps that she shares the class with Greg Lestrade and John.

She slides in the seat and whispers, "Thanks."

"Good golly, Miss Molly," says Greg with a small grin. "You were almost late. What held you up?"

Molly feels a little pang of pain. She had dated Greg, way back at the beginning of sophomore year and had left him when she found Jim. She knew he probably still liked her and it made her feel terrible. "I, um," she says, "I was talking to Sherlock."

"Sherlock?" asks John, joining the conversation. "Sherlock Holmes? My best friend Sherlock Holmes?"

"D'you know another Sherlock?" she asks, smiling cheekily at him as she pencils in the answers to the warm-up with ease.

"But he doesn't talk. To people," John says with a smile. "I mean, he doesn't talk normally… to normal people."

"What are you trying to say?" she teases him, keeping one eye on the PowerPoint of notes that's being projected and carefully avoiding (or trying to) the subject of how she would happen upon Sherlock Holmes in the first place.

"But why?" asks Greg. There's no malicious intent in his voice; he isn't jealous, and he doesn't hate Sherlock, unlike his friends Sally Donovan and Phil Anderson, who both despise the younger Holmes. "I mean… he isn't the most tactful of people."

Molly shrugs. "He was nice." She proceeds to then focus unnecessarily hard on the notes and ignores the two boys on either side of her.

She knows what's best for her, anyway.

* * *

Jim shouts and calls her a whore.

It's the last straw. She breaks up with him.

(Who needs him, anyway? When he always says rude things and is mean to Toby and tells her that he _hates_ Glee, after all.)

* * *

It's the time of John's party. Molly has stopped even associating December 25th with Christmas, because now in her head it's just John's Christmas do.

Except for that when Molly arrives, John is snogging Mary in the corner and completely unfit for talking. She turns to talk to Greg but he is staring quite openly at her bum and she doesn't think that's a conversation she wants to have right now. With no other options open, she goes to talk to Sherlock.

"Hello," she says shyly. He looks obscenely attractive. They've grown closer over the last few weeks (after Jim) and she finds herself falling head over heels for him. He smirks like he knows this, and moves a little closer.

She lets out a panicked gasp. "What-?"

"Mistletoe," he says, and points up. She automatically looks, and sure enough, a sprig of the green plant is hanging above their heads. She looks back at him in time to see him ruffling his hair in a way that really should be illegal, and their lips meet.

It's easily the best Christmas ever.

* * *

They start out January 1st with a kiss, too.

2014 is a good year.


End file.
